Places We Go

Make It Easy

April 26, 2007

City of Blinding Lights

Lola, you know damn well a question like, "What U2 album would you recommend SK buying?" is like asking me which child is my favorite. I can't pick one! Besides, I have a bias against Joshua Tree because I liked them long before that album made them a semi-household name. The Flyer says that this is irrational, and Sarah might not agree with him, but for my money, Joshua Tree is kind of overrated. But, that is just coming from a woman who scaled a security guard with her mother to get a better seat, who told her husband that their first daughter would be named after Bono's first daughter, who bought the U2 iPod and the downloads even though she had them all in a variety of forms, who has seen them in concert more times than she can remember, and who pretty much thinks that anything the group touches is golden even when it isn't. So, here are the merits on my top five favorite - alphabetically - albums by that group of school mates from Dublin . . . even if one of them is a limey.

Achtung Baby - I believe that it was their first album after they "broke up" and it is a bit edgier than anything that they had done before. WOXY played the album in its entirety the night it was released and I stayed awake (which was no small job with two infants in the next room and a full load of classes) listening to it, thinking, "Damn, this is good." I have loved "One" since that night and enjoy the guitar work on "Mysterious Ways" even if the Edge did dump his first wife in favor of the dancer from the video.

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb - yes, this was the last album, but I truly enjoy so many of the songs on here, including the title of this post (a.ma.zing in concert . . . awe inspiring if you will). Occasionally you feel as if you are being preached at (which is a big reason I don't like Joshua Tree), but this was more at the concert than anything on the album. "Vertigo" and "All Because of You" are true rock songs for them and and "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" nearly makes me weep.

October - okay, so it's Biblical . . . it isn't preachy. Granted, "Gloria" is the only real standout on this album, but I love this one (probably the best) because it was the first one that I listened to. My cousin Laura had an exchange student living with her named Lorraine (do you remember Lorraine, Lola? I wonder what happened to her . . . if you were a British exchange student living in Virginia in the early '80s and you spent some time on the family's farm in Ohio, drop us a line) and she gave me a copy of this album as a going away present. This was my introduction to U2.

The Unforgetable Fire - if October was my U2 birth, this album was my coming of age album. There wasn't a day - not a day - that went by when I didn't have this in my Walkman. Trying to get a tan at Grandma's house, lying on the cistern with the sound blasting, rolling the skinny white T-shirt up as high as it would go . . . all the while listening to Larry banging away on "A Sort of Homecoming." Even typing the words makes me nostalgic for the farm. With the addition of "Pride", "Bad", the title song, and "MLK" and if you add everything from Wide Awake in America you have the perfect U2 album, in my mind. However, if your students are doing research, make sure they don't take the time of King's assassination from "Pride" . . . it gets them every time.

War - how not to like an album with "Sunday, Bloody Sunday", "New Year's Day", "Two Hearts Beat As One", "Surrender", and "40?" Back when Mom and Dad had that hideous rowing machine, the one with the red sparkly vinyl seat that fucked up your back, "Refuge" got quite a work out.

If SK were to buy just one U2 album, I would recommend The Unforgetable Fire, cop out and get 18 for a good mix, or splurge and buy the two best of albums for something from every era. Also, in case you don't know about DATA or the ONE campaign, click on for more information . . . it only takes a second to make a difference.

Edit: Apparently, in my sinus infected brain replete with dripping nose and lack of a voice, which doesn't sound like a Muppet, I misunderstood the question. SK just wanted to know which one I would say is there definitive album . . . for someone who doesn't own one . . . which he does . . . as he just told me . . . that will teach Lola for taking a shower.Rattle and Hum? Seriously? You have got to be joking!

Comments

The first rock concert I ever went to (on my own) was U2. The Spectrum in Philadelphia. The Unforgettable Fire Tour. I was fourteen.

We had very decent seats on the side of the stage and if I close my eyes I can still the crowd singing along to "Sunday, Bloody Sunday." Me included.

Here's the thing: I thought it was okay. Yes. Just okay.

I've never really gotten the whole U2 thing and you can ask my husband because when we talk now about how pompous and ridiculous Bono has become - really a caricature of his former self, IMHO, I love to trott out the fact that I never really liked him or the band.

That's not to say I don't sing along to many of the songs. Which inevitably makes my husband point and say, "I thought you didn't like them!"

That's also not to say that if I had been to a Bruce concert when I was 14 I would've felt the same way as I do about U2 (I also saw Wham! that year) although I don't think so. That's also not to say that the pompous and ridiculous charges can't be levied against my all time music love, Mr. Bruce Springsteen. I myself have said those things about him. But then I put on Darkness and I'm in love all over again. Or I hear the love of my life sing the songs of the OTHER love of my life. I'm a goner, no matter what kind of asshole The Boss can be.

This is one of my favorite no-knitting-content-on-a-knitting-blog post I've ever seen! Way to get your U2 geek on! While I'm not an enormous fan myself, I've loved a few of 'em. Y'all are a strange breed. Loving the afghan, btw, the colors are marvelous!

Fellow sockapaloozer here... I was a rabid U2 fan back in the day. I knew obscene amounts of trivia and could recite song titles in various orders from the albums to many people's amusement. I enjoyed Achtung baby, but then it just went down hill for me. I thought they redeemed themselves w/ All that you can't leave behind. And then the next album came along and I heard Vertigo and I just couldn't stand it so I've never even given the last effort a chance... Vertigo was like a Discotheque for me and I just couldn't get on board!

Oh, and The Edge is Welsh, technically - only Bono and Larry are actually, properly Irish.